A total of 55 jobs will be axed at Telford’s defence group base BAE Systems in the latest blow to the county economy, it was revealed today.

The news was broken to workers at BAE Systems Land Systems, based at Hadley Castle Works, this morning as a total of 200 BAE jobs were lost across the UK.

Along with the Telford job losses, further jobs will go at BAE sites at Newcastle, Leeds, Leicester and Barrow. 

And in another jobs blow, aerospace giant Rolls-Royce has announced plans to cut up to 2,000 jobs worldwide, including 140 in the UK, after reviewing the impact of the current economic “uncertainties”. 

The firm said it had started consulting unions about the proposed job losses at its assembly and test facility in Derby. 

Managers at BAE, meanwhile, say a drop in the workload to upgrade British Army vehicles in the UK Ministry of Defence’s Armoured Fighting Vehicle programmes was to blame for the redundancies.

Company chiefs said they hoped employees would come forward for voluntary redundancy. Both full-time employees and contractors will be affected with around 19 members of staff and 36 contractors being axed.

David Allott, managing director of BAE Systems Land Systems, said: “We recognise the impact these job losses will have on our employees and the communities in which we operate and we always aim to mitigate as much as possible the impact of losses by offering voluntary redundancy where we can, as well as re-skilling and re-training people for alternative roles.”

The Wrekin’s Tory MP Mark Pritchard blamed the cuts on the Government’s failure to press ahead with new military vehicle orders.

“This is a further blow to jobs in Shropshire. If the Government had not delayed ordering new and required defence vehicles, then these job losses could have been avoided.

“It’s vital that the remaining jobs at Hadley are protected, but this will only happen if the Government acts rather than talks about a new generation of defence vehicles.”

Mr Pritchard will be writing to Defence Secretary John Hutton.

By Kirsty Smallman